WTAMU Professor Wins Prestigious Book Award

CANYON, Texas—West Texas A&M University’s Dr. Timothy Bowman, associate professor of history, is the recipient of the prestigious Américo Paredes Book Award for 2017 from the Center for Mexican American Studies for his book, Blood Oranges: Colonialism and Agriculture in the South Texas Borderlands. The award will be presented in October at the Center’s Hispanic Heritage Month Lecture Series.

Blood Oranges traces the cultural and economic transformation of the South Texas Borderland. Bowman argues that a “modern colonization movement” intensified racial differences as Anglo Americans gained political and economic control of the region. This led to ethnic Mexicans (Mexican nationals and Mexican Americans) in the region ranking among the poorest, least educated, and unhealthiest demographic in the country. Bowman’s book explores the circumstances surrounding the marginalization of ethnic Mexicans inside the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Tim's book is a really excellent work of borderlands history,” Dr. Brian Ingrassia, WTAMU assistant professor of history, said. “He shows how Anglo immigrants from the Midwest settled and effectively colonized the lower Rio Grande Valley by establishing major citrus plantations in the early 1900s. Bowman illustrates that even though these citrus barons worked to assert control over Mexican-American laborers, many workers banded together to assert their own identity and challenge the power of the planters by the mid twentieth century.”

Bowman’s Blood Oranges also received the Jim Parish Award presented by the Webb County Heritage Society for outstanding original research in regional history.

The Center for Mexican American Studies is located at South Texas College in McAllen. Victor Gómez, coordinator for the Center, said, “We are the only institution in the nation to recognize such works based on a multidiscipline approach within Chicana/o Latina/o Studies. We were very fortunate to have received great support and recognition from a wide range of publishing houses and scholars.”